DIY Garden Project: Easey-peasey plant labels, pots, and cloches

Lush, enveloping, bountiful summer has arrived.

Apple tree, green pea bed, and Queen Elizabeth hedge rose

Front garden with its spiraea, lavender, roses, peonies, and plum tree

Though a garden can be fragrant in any season, the summer garden ramps up the scent level because of the heat.  The twenty or so rose bushes contribute greatly to the garden's perfume.

L'etoile de Holland, a robust climber, has dark-red, velvety blooms emitting a wonderful damask fragrance

Bourbon rose:  fragrant, stripped Ferdinand Pichard

Suspect this is Chicago Peace, taken close to twilight

David Austin English Rose:   climbing, quartered, magenta, velvety, fragrant Falstaff

This mystery rose is a glowing salmon pink, very fragrant--opening from urn-shaped buds to trusses of double blooms

Fancy flowers are show stoppers for sure, but the simpler forms can wow just as much as this single-petal white rose with its delicate yellow stamens.

Daisies are magnificent in their cheerful and unassuming simplicity.

Adding to the garden's fragrance are Lily of the Valley, cottage pinks, honeysuckle, and soon, lovely lavender.   The Calm One suggested the photo below to be captioned:  This is not the Eiffel Tower.  I would be lost without his daily dose of wit.

Remember to pick bouquets to keep fragrance nearby:  sage, daisies, Lily of the Valley, cottage pinks

Honeysuckle with Bartlett pear tree in the background

Not only flowers, but fruit also is part of the scent experience.  There are strawberries, then there are gariquettes!   When I first saw gariquettes here in France, I thought the conical strawberries  looked odd.  One taste, and I was hooked. Their fragrance is also tremendously alluring.

Yes!  June-bearing gariquette strawberries

The swollen stem end can be easily sliced off, no gouging required for de-stemming

Vegetables add to the medley of scents also with their earthy aromas. The spinach planted at the beginning of March is coming in nicely.

A nice supper recipe is a vegetarian version of an hot, open-faced sandwich:  sauté well washed and chopped spinach with garlic and red pepper flakes in olive oil till tender, mix in your favourite grated cheese, and top slices of your favourite bread with the cheesy spinach, making sure the bread is moistened with the flavourful liquid from the pan.   I suspect only spinach lovers would want to try this one.

Gobbling peas in the garden is a vice, especially if one needs to accumulate enough for a fresh pea soup or a stir fried rice.

Freshly picked peas are a delight--green candy

Not only do tomato seedlings give off a mouth-watering fragrance which makes my stomach growl when tending them, they are also a tactile delight with their fuzzy stems.  I had wondered if my thirty plants would be able to bound back after being light deprived for about two weeks because of unusually drab and cool weather as I keep them on window sills.  Happily, new growth is bursting with chlorophyll once again.  The lower pale leaves can be removed and the stem buried right up to the new, green growth.  Tomato stems will sprout roots when planted, unlike many other plants whose stems would just rot.

Ah yes, the DIY project.  You probably thought I forgot about that!  So many used materials come in handy in a garden.  Three needed items are labels, cloches, and pots.  Recycled plastic  bottles/jugs are perfect from which to make all three items.  Opaque cloches can be used for blanching and for protecting plants against overnight frost.  Transparent/translucent ones are good for protecting against slugs and continuing frost. 

MATERIALS: 

• Coloured/clear/opaque soda, water, and milk plastic bottles
• Awl for making drainage holes for pots
• Matt knife for cutting the bottoms off for pots
• Scissors for cutting various sized labels
• Water-proof markers for writing on labels
• Bottle caps to regulate temperature, too hot, remove cap, too cold keep cap on.

Three large labels can be made from a quart-sized bottle.  The bottom becomes a small pot.

The large label can be reduced to generate a few small ones and one medium-sized label

Large label goes pointed end down into the soil

Translucent plastic cloche protecting baby lettuce from slugs.  Bottom part becomes a pot.  Awl is used for making drainage holes

Off to prepare some beds for white/kidney beans and flageolets!  See you next week.

RELATED POSTS 

Starting tomato seedling indoors

Transplanting strawberries

Doing the Rhubarb Crumble!

A small part of our garden is kept a bit wild to shelter insect-eating friends like hedgehogs and lizards.

Pleasingly unkempt back corner, with weedy grass, bluebells and ivy.

Dayo appreciates the camouflage as he does a good job of catching Asiatic wasps hatching from the ground which is a serious problem in our region.

Dayo keeps his paw over the emerging wasp until I can squash it.  We make a great team.

The peas sown in mid February are merrily putting out flowers and in a couple of weeks there will be les petits pois to harvest.

The nodding heads of pea flowers

The hard-neck garlic will probably be ready for scape harvesting in a couple of weeks.

Cosily mulched under oak leaves

The delectable method of baking fruit under a buttery crumb topping is called crisp for Americans, crumble for the British. This approach towards flour and butter is a very clever way of getting much of the delights of a pastry crust without the bother.  Rhubarb is a splendid looking plant, about three-feet high and just as wide, quite bold in contour, sporting large, crinkled leaves.  Being a perennial, it comes back year after year.

Handsome rhubarb lends itself well to an edible landscape--a few are in my front garden

However, it is a moisture lover, so I do have to keep it well watered during our long, hot growing season.  Since rhubarb lasts for about 15 years, good preparation at planting time needs to be done--a deeply dug hole with lots of incorporated compost is essential.  Rhubarb grows well in full sun or part-shade; a few can be placed in the smaller bays between larger shrubs as long as the area is pesticide and herbicide free.

It is one of the perennials popping out in early spring, with its delightful, large, pinkish, egg-shaped ball of leaves ready to unfurl.  Though there are named varieties, I was just able to get from my nursery what they call red rhubarb.   Both green and red rhubarb taste the same, but I like how the red looks in cooking.  If green is only available, a few strawberries which are usually available at the same time, can be tossed into a recipe for colour.

Since the leaves are poisonous, it is important to carefully remove them when preparing rhubarb for cooking.  Though the huge flower buds are edible and supposedly taste like broccoli, I forgo eating them because they are tightly wrapped in young leaves.  However, the leaves and buds can be safely composted.  There are some varieties of ornamental rhubarb that are grown for flowers, but in general, for food-producing plants, flowering suddenly becomes very undesired and is referred to as bolting.  All energy needs to be channelled into the edible parts.  So, off with their heads!

I try to remove the buds as soon as I can see them as they get as big as broccoli with very thick stalks

No harvest is recommended the first spring after their planting, a limited one for the second spring, but for the third, a full harvest of about six to eight stalks can be done several times in a season.  Our plants are entering their third spring so we are very pleased as we both adore rhubarb.  The Calm One has loved rhubarb since childhood, while I reluctantly at first ate it, and then fell passionately in love with its no-holds-bar, in-your-face zing.  The punchy taste of rhubarb begs for the taming influence of butter, flour, and cream.

If using garden-fresh rhubarb, it is best not to harvest stalks by cutting them off at soil level because any remaining stalk under the soil will rot, possibly causing disease.  Pull upward with a slight twist from the bottom of the stalk.  Sometimes, I need to use both hands for the more sturdy stalks.

Just pulled rhubarb stalks gracing a sous sol window sill

I like putting leeks and rhubarb in this little glass pitcher, don't ask me why.

Rhubarb Crumble Recipe
(Makes nine generous servings, recipe can be halved)

• Rhubarb, washed, peeled, and sliced, 1 kg or about 15 medium stalks
• Sugar, 620 gms
• Flour, 320 gms
• Butter, cold, 160 gms
• Cream for serving

Fresh rhubarb needs to be peeled of its fibrous outer layer (See addendum below).

When preparing food, I keep a container close by to collect vegetable matter for composting.

Pretty rhubarb ribbons

Put rhubarb in an oven dish and mix with 300 grams of sugar and place in an oven preheated to 400 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes until rhubarb is completely tender.

Remove approximately 1/3rd cup of rhubarb liquid otherwise the topping does not stand a chance of retaining its integrity and will just dissolve during baking.  The remaining rhubarb should appear slushy and not drowning in liquid.

Meanwhile, make the topping.  Mix the flour and rest of sugar in a large bowl.  Cut the butter into small pieces and add to the bowl. Mix in food processor or by hand, until resembling coarse sand.  It takes around thirty to sixty seconds with a processor and about five to seven minutes by hand.

Mixed by hand

Spread topping on rhubarb filling in all edges.

Note the golden pink hue of the extra rhubarb juice on the left.

Bake till topping is crusty and golden, about 30 minutes.

Serve with cream or with whipped cream

This gooey, fragrant, carmelized, and succulent crumble can be served warm or cold.  Chez nous, after our eating the first servings, the Calm One is under direct orders--no one can expect me to do this task since I am the resident hedonist, oh excuse me, gourmet--to portion out and freeze the rest so they can not be so accessible for non-stop gorging.  In other words, calorie input can be regulated through the wonders of freezing.  With few exceptions, most food can be frozen with little change in its goodness.  Freezing is my prepared method of food preservation.

Bon appétit!

Michelle's Astuce:

Though I just drink the extra rhubarb juice as a fortitude-boosting elixir enabling my continuing in my baking endeavour, it is conceivable that a lovely coulis could be made and then served with the crumble.  In that case, just strain the syrup of the little bits of rhubarb and add cream or the coulis can be dribbled over whipped cream.

ADDENDUM:

Apparently there is a great peel-or-not-peel rhubarb debate raging on the web! Sarah had commented at this post that she is one of the non-peelers.  For my next crumble, I forwent peeling and the Calm One preferred it to the previous with peeled stalks.  He found it way more rhubarby.  Also it was less juicy, with way more body,  therefore, I did not need to take out some liquid to prevent the topping from dissolving.  Perhaps for very big and old rhubarb stalks, peeling may be necessary.  In any case, feel free to experiment for yourself.

What's a Good Garden Day?

If the main task at hand is to sow directly into the soil, then a good garden day would be one without any wind.  If you are sensitive to cold or heat, then a mild day is a good garden day.  If you want to be at peace in the garden, and you have a truck depot behind your garden like I do, then each and every weekend when the depot is closed are good garden days.

If your hose sprung a surprise leak on a summer Sunday when most shops are closed in France, then a rainy Sunday is a good garden day. If your straw hat gets blown off repeatedly on a windy, blistering hot day, a good garden day is when you find a ribbon at the back of some drawer so you can tie the hat onto your head and prevent yourself dying from heatstroke.

The Usual Suspects

A good garden day is when the meutrier (killer) shed still has not collapsed on you as you flirt with possible disaster by entering it to fetch something.  An equally good garden day is when the dilapidated top of the cold frame decided to come crashing down while you were peacefully having your lunch.

A good garden day is when you just get stung by two wasps instead of a whole swarm, so it is still possible for you to limp back into the house while rubbing your rump as you carefully avoid direct eye contact with Monsieur M.  When first starting out on a tight budget two and a half years ago and not able to buy some of the pricier tools, having generous, helpful neighbours made every day a good garden day, especially if they offer to mow your weedy lawn like Monsieur M did. 

Because I could just afford grass shears, I would get down on my knees and go full out artisanale (labour done by hand) on our weed patch, oops, lawn.  After weeks of watching this nonsense and listening to hours of over-the-fence discussions with Madame M regarding better manual tools than mere shears--a scythe was considered--and probably at the same time envisioning lopped-off toes, Monsieur M said rather abruptly but with a gentle firmness, I will mow your lawn.  Since I nodded my head so vigorously in agreement, it remaining attached to my shoulders and not rolling down the garden path made a good day even better.

My previous mower

A good garden day is while you are frantically thinking how you will ever buy enough ground covers to combat the thistles, nettles, dandelions, bindweed, and dock engulfing the garden, you spy a smiling Madame M dangling a huge shopping bag filled with cuttings of Dianthus, one of your most beloved, evergreen, low-growing, flowering plants, given to her by a friend who lives dans la campagne--the very same country friend who in autumn deluges us with grapes, chestnuts, and walnuts.  It is not just any beloved Dianthus, but the fabled Mrs. Sinkins of the astounding fragrance.

Mrs. Sinkins reving up for a fantastically fragrant flower display

In other words, just having a garden along with a flexible, receptive attitude makes each day a good one.  Bien sûr, good neighbours also help, not to mention Dayo.

Burnished gold on burnished gold:  Dayo guarding oak leaves in a large leaf bag

The Stalwart Leek

The roses are close to blooming.  Though roses themselves are gorgeous, the leaves are attractive in their own right.

One of the seven Queen Elizabeth hedge roses taking a shower

Handsome, versatile leeks function both as an food crop and structural plants.  Sow seeds by May and they will provide visual/culinary interest starting in early autumn all the way through to next spring.  They can be popped into the bays between shrubs in a sunny location as long as the area is pesticide/herbicide free. They will stay in the ground looking smart and perky until you are ready for them so no real need for successive planting.

Leeks are biennials.  The second year, that is, their second spring, they go to seed. Edible plants often go bitter when they go to seed, so I make sure I harvest what I want as food before that happens, leaving a couple of plants for seed collection.  Or if you have the space just let nature eventually do it for you and then transplant the volunteers into better locations.

Note the lovely self-sown youngster.

Select the sturdiest and most robust leeks to be your seed bearers.  The seed head itself looks like a gnome's pointy hat.  Leeks are such a class act as they look as dapper as ever while sporting their steely-blue, violet, or white globular flower heads.

Leek seeds being tiny and black makes it difficult to regulate their spacing.  In addition, leeks are best transplanted so their lower fleshy parts are fully buried ensuring that they will be white and sweetly succulent.

Transplanting allows for the better placed leek on the right which is buried right up to bottom leaves

Leeks certainly can be mounded if grown in place.  However, both problems are solved more easily if they are sown first in flats.  Or a few seeds can be sown in small pots, obviating the need to transplant later to larger pots.  Leeks do not need heat to germinate so the flats/pots can go out on the terrace/patio/balcony. In either case choose the sturdiest seedlings to remain, clipping the others off at soil level with scissors.   Another approach is to sow directly into a nursery bed, with later transplanting to where they will mature and be harvested. When transplant size, they are as thick as a pencil and should be placed about five inches apart.

As leeks and potatoes are such a perfect pairing one does not have to stop with leek and potato soup.  This agreeable coupling works well when making twice-baked potatoes.  Eight halves make for a very nice packed lunch for two if one has access to a microwave.  Some people do without re-heating, not that I would know about that!  Or two halves can accompany a larger meal providing a total of four servings.

TWICE-BAKED POTATOES WITH LEEK STUFFING
(Makes eight halves)

• Four medium-large baking or all-purpose potatoes 
• Leeks, thoroughly washed and sliced, two cups 
• Parmesan cheese, grated, 1/2 cup
• Cream, 1/3 cup 
• Garlic, one large clove crushed
• Red pepper flakes
• Butter, salt, freshly ground black pepper as needed

Having a block of aged Parmesan is nice to have handy

Scrub potatoes well.  Arrange on a rack in a 450 degrees F oven and bake till tender when tested with a knife's point--when done, the knife will feel like it is sliding of its own accord into the centre--about 45 to 60 minutes depending on the potatoes' size.

While the potatoes are baking, cook the prepared leeks and crushed garlic with a tablespoon each of butter and water--sauté for a few minutes first in butter, then add the water--in a covered skillet till tender for about 15 minutes.  Cut the baked potatoes into halves and scoop out the insides into a mixing bowl, leaving enough potato to make 1/8 inch thick walls.  This is a rather important detail for the finished dish--if the walls are too thin, the shells will not do their job holding the filling neatly in place, if too thick, you miss out on the delectable filling that could have been there.

Score first around the edge and then hollow out, neither too thickly or thinly

Rice or mash the potatoes in a large mixing bowl.  Reserving a couple of tablespoons of leeks for garnishing, put the rest in a small bowl and purée with an immersion blender with just enough cream to get a smooth texture. Then add the puréed leeks, Parmesan, and the rest of the cream along with the desired amount of salt and freshly ground pepper to the potatoes.  Beat well with a large wooden spoon or whisk till a luscious consistency.  Stuff the potato  halves.

This nifty masher is really a ricer

Note the leeks smoothly blended with just enough cream and the leeks  reserved for garnishing

Any time food preparation requires mixing/beating, I use it as an excuse to make percussion music

The filling can be piped into the shells or a scored pattern  following the contours of the potatoes can be made using a fork.  Bits of butter placed on top will increase browning.  Bake 400 degrees F for about a half an hour or until the top is crusty and golden brown. Garnish with red pepper flakes and the reserved leeks which may need to be reheated to make them glisten attractively.

Bon appétit!

Michelle's Astuce

If a more puffy, pillow-like look is preferred, mound the shells as fully as necessary, using the extra ones as the basis for making potato skins.  There will be about four halves constituting heftier portions, so keep that in mind when menu planning.

RELATED LINKS

Sowing seeds indoors

Cleaning leeks and leek/potato soup recipe